EYEWITNESS IN POLAND ANSWERS 'TIMES' ATTACK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00297R000201240001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 22, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 17, 1960
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

11-1 Tf-113 11" - -
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/23: CIA-RDP74-00297R000201240001-5
Eyewitness in Poland
Answers
l'ItILLIP BONOSICI
filE RECENT series in the
Y Times by its ex-Polish
:1..!ndent, A. M. Rosenthal,
? hir.,k- us of a doggerel that
es so liething like .this:
ou ,rir,,t hope to bribe or twist,
(;4,d, the British journalist
t se,..jig_what the man will do,
? ed, there's no occasion to.
Place "American" instead of
--o perhaps alongside of ?
' and the shoe will ad-
eiii.aluy fit. For the fact of the
.iiktt.o? is that these articles by
:bi Rosenthal on Poland could
been bought in the usual
%.%:-ty. They came from the heart. .
It is a legend, which has long
Inst its relevance, to picture
r, wsmen today as independent,
free, and devoted to the truth.
R.osenthal hates socialism, and
d(pA not need to be Toad to hake
iT. He sees it through a crooked
glass crookedly, and does not
want any other kind of glass to
look through.
And so we have a picture of
in esent-day Poland presented to
is thiotigh the Times that is
a mode! of malice, half-truths
im! CIA discards, and the
; .,f the workingclass in its
',11ggle to change history
'Times' Attack
and make superflous the world
that A. M. Rosenthal lives in.
? . SPECIALIZED FISHING'
Rosenthal boasts he WRS ex-
pelled from Poland because he
"probed" too deeply. But the
facts are different. Rosenthal did
net "probe" for the truth; he
merely repeated every slander,
saspieien and bit of gossip he
heard,. the only condition for ac-
eeptanee being that it should re-
flect negatively On the Polish
government and the Conwnunist
Party.
The situation in Poland is com-
plicated enough; it doesn't take
too much to distort the undoubted
complications. This I know first-
hand and from information. But
at the same time, I also know
from first-hand etridenoe that
Rosenthal is net writing of P.
landtoday but of the Poland
of his wish-fullfillments, of his
dreams, and the dreams of the
CIA.
I spent a weak in Poland just
a few weeks ago. So little time
In a country scarcely can make
anyone an expert. I am not such
an expert But I did sties]: to
many representatives of different
phases of Polish life, and we went
more or less deeply ir to prol-
kw of Polish life. Tne nicture
that emerged from tne,e dis-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release
cussions is, ultimately, utterly at
variance with Rosenthal's, but,
and here is where the sneakiness
comes in, at certain points there
is a temporary coincidence of
outward features. The point lies
in how these features are to be
interpreted and how significant
and even decisive they are.
GOING FORWARD
Rosenthal sees Poland going
back to "Staliniain". But nobody
in Poland is going back to any-
thing; forward is the only di-
rection the Poles, except the die-
hard revisionists, are conscious
of. Nor do they condemn whole-
sale the period before October,
1956, during which certain posi-
tive policy lines were laid down,
primarily the construction of an
industrial hese in Poland, which
Instead of being repudiated is
being carried forward with great-
er vigor.
Rosenthal claims that the Par-
ty is hated, that the Russians
are hated, that Marxism com-
mands no .respeet among intel-
lectuals, that the people are all
found to the Catholic church, and
if all else fails, there are the
ignorant and backward small-
plot farrners to save "free" Po-
land! ?
"LONG-TERM PRESSURE'
Speaking at the convention of
. tho Polish United Workers Party
in March, A. Zawadzki, a mem-
ber of the Political Bureau of
the Central Committee, see ried
,to have someone like Rosen-
thal in mind when he said:
'When they were compelled to
abandon stakes in the 'second
stage', when the direct attack on
Socialism and ma the Party fniled,
the reactionary forces %%Rhin
and outside the country settled
for diverse long-term anti-So-
cialist pressure,.
"The economic achievements
of the country and the improved
material situation of the work-
ing people are put to doubt.
Opinions are voiced that people
are now living through a Oriod
of disappointment, that Party
matters and its policy are treat-
ed with indifference, that this
policy regrew:de an abandonment
of the Milky inangurated by Oc-
leber, 1956, and the like. It is
perfidiously asserted that Com-
munism does not command the
type of ember aiiitYlat roc41 to ? A J
rameriftimaa f
@ 50-Yr 2013/10/23: CIA-RDP74-00297R000201240001-5